Designing Electric Guitars to Teach Mechatronics and Advanced Manufacturing Techniques

Gavin Garner holds a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Colby College and Master’s and Ph.D. degrees in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from the University of Virginia. His primary area of expertise lies in the burgeoning field of Mechatronics (aka robotics). Over the past decade, he has built UVA’s Mechatronics program from scratch, developing over 50 hours of unique laboratory experiments as well as dozens of open-ended design projects. Through this experience, he has gained valuable insight into how to engage engineering students and teach them difficult, interdisciplinary material both efficiently and effectively. He was named a ”Graduate Teaching Fellow” by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers from 2007-2009. Since then, he has won numerous other teaching awards for his creativity and dedication to student learning. He is especially interested in updating traditional mechanical engineering courses to better integrate the modern tools and techniques used to solve today’s design problems in industry.